In 1970, the world was speeding down the fast lane. Day by day, one had only to open the morning newspaper to see that politics were changing, social mores and cultural standards were all in flux. On men and women, hair was getting longer while hemlines were growing shorter. In the musical arena, barriers that had long separated genres and styles were crashing down; it was as if some leather-clad Gabriel had blown his celestial horn and musicians from all stylistic corners – rock, jazz, funk and R&B – were suddenly meeting on common ground.
Gabriel of course was better known by his earthly name – Miles Davis. And his recording that served as the trumpet blast razing the walls of tradition and conformity in 1970? Bitches Brew.
Inspired by the sound of burgeoning rock acts like Santana and Jimi Hendrix and soul groups like James Brown and Sly and the Family Stone, Bitches Brew is the best-selling, double-album filled with extended jams and electronic instruments, powered by groove and rock rhythms, and featuring a collection of jazz musicians that Miles called “the greatest rock band of all time” (many of whom are today’s jazz headliners). It was released in 1970 and quickly gained best-selling status on a par with rock and pop albums.
To this day, Bitches Brew stands as the jazz “shot heard round the world”: the first recording to successfully combined disparate music styles, marry acoustic with electric, update an entire musical genre and point the way to the future. Unsurprisingly, it remains the most enduring wedge-point between jazz traditionalists and modernists.
2010 marks the 40th anniversary of the release of Bitches Brew, a milestone that demands a re-listening and re-consideration of Miles Davis’s groundbreaking and controversial recording. Enter Bitches Brew Revisited.
Bitches Brew Revisited serves as both a celebration and reworking of Miles Davis’s layered “fusion” formula, as ambitious in scope and exciting in its musical promise as the original album. As in 1970, Bitches Brew Revisited pulls together a gathering of some of the most adventurous talent representing what are today the even more widespread and disparate corners of the musical world. A Bitches Brew Revisited performance features music from the Miles Davis album while also drawing material from a rotating cast of players, featuring: the rootsy/fusion guitar styles of James Blood Ulmer, the cornet-and-electronics wizardry of Graham Haynes, to the atmospheric synths and funky keyboards of Marco Benevento, improvised turntable magic of D.J. Logic, to the sharp, emotional reedwork of Antoine Roney, the supple and solid bass playing of Lonnie Plaxico, the post bop fusion of purcussionist Adam Rudolph and rock and jazz-rooted drumming of Cindy Blackman.
Though many groups have performed electrified jazz fusion in the style of Bitches Brew, Bitches Brew Revisited stands out in its ability to both conjure the funk and flavor of Davis’s 1969 jams while offering music that is fresh and true to the distinct talents of the individual musicians. That balance of historic and contemporary led the New York Times to praise the project in its January 2010 debut: “In Bitches Brew Revisited, a septet led by the cornetist Graham Haynes, powered by the drummer Cindy Blackman and colored by the guitarist James Blood Ulmer, jazz became whatever it was Miles Davis intended in 1969: spacious, black-magic stealth funk.”
Bitches Brew Revisited also benefits from the support of the family of the noted artist Abdul Mati Klarwein who created Bitches Brew’s original, quasi-surreal album cover, with such elements as an African couple embracing on a beach, intertwining heads and fingers of a black and a white woman, sea meeting sky—all implying a blending of opposites. The Klarwein family will graciously provide original artwork of the same startling, Afrocentric style for use on posters, programs, and other promotional materials in connection with Bitches Brew Revisited.
